The offensive, which is backed by air strikes from a Saudi-led coalition, came as the Iran-allied Houthis and the party of ex-President Ali Abdullah Saleh announced a 10-member governing council, against the wishes of the U.N.
The Houthis and Saleh’s General People’s Congress (GPC), hold most of Yemen’s northern half, while forces loyal to Hadi share control of the rest of the country with local tribes.
The fighting in which more than 6,400 people have been killed, half of them civilians, has created a humanitarian crisis in one of the poorest countries in the Middle East.
The pro-Hadi sabanew.net news agency said that the Yemeni army and allied local tribesmen, backed by Arab coalition air strikes, began a major operation to “liberate the district of Nehem east of Sanaa”. The area is a key route to the capital, which has been under Houthi control since 2014.
“The army and the resistance have managed to liberate a number of important military positions that had been controlled by the coup militias, most prominent of which is the Manara mount which overlooks the centre of Nehem district,” the agency quoted a military spokesman as saying.
Fighting was also reported on the Yemeni-Saudi border, where a Saudi border guard was killed by fire directed from the Yemeni side, the Saudi state news agency SPA said, citing a security spokesman.
A spokesman for the Saudi-led coalition accused the Houthis of escalating attacks along the border, where the alliance had scaled back its military operations to give the Yemeni peace talks a chance to succeed.
“The militias began military operations along the border after the suspension of the Yemeni consultations,” the spokesman, General Ahmed al-Asseri, told the Saudi-owned al-Hadath television, referring to the Houthis. “The Houthi militias are trying to achieve gains on the ground to make up for political losses,” he added.
The comments came after the U.N. special envoy, Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed announced that talks in Kuwait had been adjourned, promising they would resume at an unspecified venue within a month.
“We will leave Kuwait today, but peace consultations will continue. We will let the parties consult their leaders,” he told a news conference.
Yemeni Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Abdulmalik Al Mekhlafi on Saturday said contacts with Kuwait, other members of the Gulf Cooperation Council and the international community will continue in order to back the efforts being made by the UN special envoy to Yemen, Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed to arrive at permanent peace in Yemen.
The Yemeni official news agency said Al Mekhlafi, who headed the Yemeni government delegation at the peace consultations in Kuwait, was speaking during a meeting with the Kuwaiti deputy foreign minister, Khaled Suleiman Al Jarallah, to thank Kuwait for hosting the intra-Yemeni talks over the past three months.
Earlier, Al Mekhlafi took to Twitter to express regret that the UN-sponsored peace consultations have ended in Kuwait without achieving the peace that the Yemeni people aspire to.
He accused the rebel Houthi group and their ally, the General People’s Congress, led by the now-ousted president Ali Abdullah Saleh, of blocking the consultations in Kuwait and continuing the war.
Kuwaiti deputy foreign minister, in turn, said his country was looking forward to a peace that would restore security and stability to Yemen.

Source: Reuters, Agencies, 7 Aug. 2016